Hi, I have a friend who hurt himself a while back on a rail, and now he is scared of all park terrain. Is there any way that will help him gain confidence in the park, or will he just have to gradually get used to it again? It's sort of annoying riding with him, because he wont try even the most basic of things even though he is a good rider. Thanks

Hi, I have a friend who hurt himself a while back on a rail, and now he is scared of all park terrain. Is there any way that will help him gain confidence in the park, or will he just have to gradually get used to it again? It's sort of annoying riding with him, because he wont try even the most basic of things even though he is a good rider. Thanks

When some people take a solid hit they get scared away from the sport, let alone just the park. No advice for you as I get more determined to land something the more it hurts me.

Some personality types just aren't suited for high risk type things. If he won't try something again because he fell once, he's not going to progress freestyle at all because a large part of freestyle is accepting you're going to fall and it might hurt (for a little bit), be embarassing or cause injury. You have to be able to accept those things and not think about them when you're out there.

sometimes in these situations (for me, after i break myself off and get gunshy from stuff) i gotta slow things down and think about it more... look at it a little longer.

for me this means hiking the feature instead of just lapping the run that its in. you get to watch a bunch of other people hit it (usually) when you're hiking back up and you get a better feel for the feature.

so if he's afraid of it all maybe take it one thing at a time... a little jump or a lil funbox sesh to start things off..

I totally disagree with the attitude of throwing caution to the wind and accepting that you are going to get hurt.

Accepting you will get hurt isn't throwing caution to the wind, though. You WILL get hurt snowboarding regardless of discipline because eventually you will fall. You might not (or ever) get seriously hurt, but you're going to fall and it might not feel so good. I think accepting you will eventually be hurt and not dwelling while you should be concentrating on it goes back to the point you make about your fear actually inhibiting what you're doing. This doesn't mean you have to be reckless, though.

If your friend is already on the smallest, most basic feature and falls and get scared, there's not much you can do until he decides to try it again. I've seen people fall their first time riding a 2' wide ride on box and won't try it again. But there's no where else to go from there, that's pretty much the most basic thing you can do. There's nothing I can do for them. If that blonde chick from Girls Next Door can do a flat box, then you can tell your friend he should be able to as well.

Coming back to something later is one thing. Sometimes it's smart to downgrade yourself to an easier feature or give it a break for a few minutes, an hour or the day. But if you he gets discouraged to the point of not wanting to do anything whenever he falls, that's just going to really limit his ability improve and progress.

I had a similar situation to your friend. I'm a very active freeride/downhill biker and sustained a major injury in 2007. (Detached all skin from my jawline from ear to ear, broken jaw, broken nose, broken cheekbone, broken eye socket)

It took the best part of 3 and a half years and watching my friends progress like crazy in their skills whilst still being terrified of doing even the simplest things which I could nail with my eyes closed. Slowly I began to build confidence, particularly over the last 6 months and am now at the level where my friends were a year and a half ago but I'm still catching up.

Recovering from an injury and moving forward in the sport is a very intimate relationship between the rider him/herself and their own confidence which is so fragile. The memory of what happened to me is always in the back of my mind now and I don't expect it to ever truly leave but then again it's a constant reminder of what not to do

Fear is going to be a limiting factor and can actually result in additional injury like a self fulfilling prophecy. A person can only deal with their fear from withing; nothing you can do will change that. At this point, he will have to work his own way through the process and the best thing you can do is be supportive and encouraging. Push without being pushy. As Shredlife said, for many people, an injury is a bit of wake up call to do things smarter.

A quote from an old movie "fear causes hesitation".

I'm just rehashing on this a bit but it's always good to get multiple viewpoints. I see more people, usually newer riders, get hurt by that brief moment of panic right before the rail or jump. It's hard to explain but a good example of this is a beginner going down the run too fast and they panic and fall to stop, we see it all the time on the lifts. That's what your friend is going to have to overcome. If he has the skills, then he can do it he just needs to calm his brain down and realize it was just one bad crash. We've probably all had that ONE crash that really took it out of us. Personally, if I go down hard I have to get right back up and hit it again as soon as possible so I don't overthink it.

So, in the case of the OP's friend. I know you said he is scared of the most basic features, but it might help him a lot for you and whoever you ride with to tone it down and just hit the basic stuff all day. Mess around on a progression park type feature and he may see you do it easy enough that his confidence increases to the point he'll want to try it. A tip I always give kids that are scared to hit something is to take a really deep breath on the way to the feature because again when you panic or get scared you get tense and tense legs are bad, especially on rails. As Snowolf said, push but don't go crazy with it to the point he gets stressed out, it's a mental game he's dealing with right now. Telling him something like "bro you'll feel so much better after you land this again!" is much better than "do it!" or "come on". It could snap him into thinking he needs to overcome it rather than feeling like he can't. If he really doesn't make any effort to hit anything, and won't even consider hitting it when you and your friends encourage him to do it, it's probably not going to change if it's really his personality.

Just out of curiosity, what was the physical injury that caused all this?

Hi, I have a friend who hurt himself a while back on a rail, and now he is scared of all park terrain. Is there any way that will help him gain confidence in the park, or will he just have to gradually get used to it again? It's sort of annoying riding with him, because he wont try even the most basic of things even though he is a good rider. Thanks

What was your friends injury if I may ask also ???
As stated several times, the smallest, simplest ride on/off feature may be his only park feature. He needs to be willing to try. The more pressure from you or other riders may push him further into his resolve to NOT hit any park feature ever again....